Quotes from Robert E. Howard

But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their blood.

It is only the promise of death that makes life worth living.

I don't believe I ever saw an Oklahoman who wouldn't fight at the drop of a hat -- and frequently drop the hat himself.

By this axe I rule!

Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat & stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame crimson, and I am content......Conan the Cimmerian.

For man's only weapon is courage that flinches not from the gates of Hell itself, and against such not even the legions of Hell can stand.

A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.

Gleaming shell of an outworn lie; fable of Right divine— You gained your crowns by heritage, but Blood was the price of mine. The throne that I won by blood and sweat , by Crom, I will not sell For promise of valleys filled with gold, or threat of the Halls of Hell!

Over the souls of men spread the condor wings of colossal monsters and all manner of evil things prey upon the heart and soul and body of Man. Yet it may be in some far day the shadows shall fade and the Prince of Darkness be chained forever in his hell. And till then mankind can but stand up stoutly to the monsters in his own heart and without, and with the aid of God he may yet triumph.

I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their blood, restless harbingers of violence and bloodshed, knowing no other path....

I never saw a man fight as Conan fought. He put his back to the courtyard wall, and before they overpowered him the dead men were strewn in heaps thigh-deep about him. But at last they dragged him down, a hundred against one.

How can I wear the harness of toil And sweat at the daily round, While in my soul forever The drums of Pictdom sound?

It was no ape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the mysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed in the reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered in temples that had never known the tread of a human foot.

Time and times are but cogwheels, unmatched, grinding on oblivious to one another. Occasionally - oh, very rarely! - the cogs fit; the pieces of the plot snap together momentarily and give men faint glimpses beyond the veil of this everyday blindness we call reality.

Lift that scimitar against me, you Hyrkanian pig and I'll gut you where you stand!

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.

But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.

A true fanatic, his promptings were reasons enough for his actions.

Never the less, it is no light thing to enter into a profession absolutely foreign and alien to the people among which one's lot is cast; a profession which seems as dim and faraway and unreal as the shores of Europe.

There is always a way, if the desire be coupled with courage," answered the Cimmerian

I am a landless man...I come out of the sunset and into the sunrise I go, wherever the Lord doth guide my feet.

I have come to believe that mankind eternally hovers on the brinks of secret oceans of which it knows nothing.

In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless.